If you’ve been reading PPC Ian for a while, you know that I’ve been a long-time fan of domains. It makes perfect sense as someone who’s now in the commercial real estate industry. I see so much value in owning physical, tangible real property. The same can be said for the real estate of the Internet, domain names.

Rob Monster: CEO of Epik, Entrepreneur, Investor

Veteran readers have also likely followed my journey with Epik over the years as a developer, investor, and advisor. Epik is one of those companies that truly transformed the domain industry, approaching domains as investments and treating customers with concierge services. The trend I see more of every single day revolves around excellence in customer service and experience. Offer legendary customer service like Epik, and your business has a true competitive advantage.

Today’s post is a special one, packed with knowledge and insights from one of the brightest minds around. This knowledge will shape your career. It’s a post all about domains, careers, and the entrepreneurial journey. I have the amazing opportunity to interview an entrepreneurial legend, Rob Monster. Rob just so happens to be Chairman and CEO of Epik. In addition to Epik, Rob’s career is fascinating and impressive. A few highlights (from oldest to newest):

Ian: Rob, thank you so much for taking the time to interview here at PPC Ian. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity.

Rob: It is my pleasure Ian. I am happy to be with you, as I too am a fan of your work as well and have been able to experience your capabilities first hand.

Epik: The Swiss Bank of Domain Names

Ian: I wanted to structure today’s interview with questions spanning domains, careers, and the entrepreneurial journey. Let’s start with domains… What’s the latest and greatest in the domain industry? What are the newest trends? I’m hearing a lot about the new gTLDs. How do these affect digital marketers, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and investors?

Rob: As you know the latest thing has been the launch of the new gTLDs, or domain extensions. The web is shifting to one that is increasingly semantic, i.e. where the text string after the dot has meaning. For example, very soon, you will be able to type city.menu and go to a site that will show you restaurants in your area, and their menus, or go to restaurant.menu and see that restaurant’s latest menu as well as order food online for in-store, take-out or delivery. This is a good illustration of the potential of new domains. The new registries are just now starting to engage as platform developers and I think the implications of that shift are enormous for the future of direct navigation. For example, I am personally involved in several of platform development projects, including .MENU, .TUBE and .BIBLE.

I believe we are just scratching the surface here and that the next 5 years will see the biggest wave of innovation in direct navigation since the launch of the first web browsers. A viable direct navigation framework is critical to the re-emergence of a free Internet, one that is not edited and mediated through search engines. In fact, I think the biggest risk for owners of independent web properties is that search engines are becoming decision engines where sites like Bing and Google simply answer the questions through structured responses, rather than routing you to a list of sites where the searcher has to do the heavy lifting of discerning what is true, particularly in cases where the answers on different sites are not the same as is often the case when doing research.

Online brands represent a trust relationship. People who buy domains are buying the raw land for what can eventually be a brand. The launch of these new TLDs represent a new wave of opportunity to create intuitive and clever online brands, as well as networks of direct navigation sites that adhere to a unified brand and to a unified navigation convention. This will not happen overnight, but I think it is the next big thing for the Internet.

As for the China domain speculation frenzy of the past year, this seems to have been a flash in the pan, with a binge of speculation by a new generation of domain investors who generally lacked a viable development strategy. Many folks made a fortune in the last year selling short .COM names, e.g. 2-4 character and 2-7 numeric .COM domains that adhere to specific patterns that appealed to Chinese investors. I am pretty sure that has peaked but am happy for the industry windfall.

I think the Gulf region will be an interesting region to watch. I am speaking this weekend in Dubai, where I see a whole new generation of savvy domain investors who are looking at domain investment with the intention to develop.

Ian: What is Epik? How does Epik differentiate itself from other registrars? Especially interested in your perspective on customer service, and how Epik offers legendary customer service as a core differentiator. This is something I truly admire about your company.

Power Couple: Rob Monster and Dr. Jill Monster

Rob: Epik is a full-service and all-inclusive registrar. The term "Legendary Support" actually came from some of our early registrar customers, as did the other more recent Epik tagline "The Swiss Bank of Domains". Before becoming a registrar in 2011, I was a relatively large GoDaddy client. Like most early domain investors I did not have great names. At the same time, I was perceptive enough to realize that GoDaddy had grown to nearly 50% market share while providing what I considered to be poor service with an excessive emphasis on up-sells and hidden charges. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I signed up for free Domain WHOIS Privacy, only to find out that it was not free after year 1, and that it was a major and time-consuming task to remove the privacy. I wrote an open letter to then CEO Bob Parsons about the experience. When I still saw no remedial action from GoDaddy, I felt it was time for a new registrar to emerge. I absolutely believed in the merits of domain names as an asset class, but it was then that I decided that despite GoDaddy employing many lovely and kind people, their policies were Draconian and the industry needed a compelling alternative. So, it was at that point that I set out to build the best registrar I knew how, providing world class domain management software, and combining that with a passionate culture of service excellence. This has served Epik well. Without aggressive marketing, and without acquisitions, we grew 82% in 2015, our 5th full year operating as an ICANN-accredited registrar.

Ian: The Epik homepage describes domains as assets and investments. As an investor myself, this messaging truly resonates with me. Could you please define your personal take on virtual real estate as investments, especially in 2016? Many early investors in the 1990s did extremely well buying generic dot com domains. With that early gold rush being over, are there still opportunities for savvy investors?

Rob: I think the domain investment game is changing. The old legacy business model of buying domains and parking them is a broken model. Most of the parking portfolios that do well are actually filled with lousy domain names. As the parking feed providers have continued to squeeze the parking companies, the monetization from parking has become anemic. While we do park some domains, it has never been the emphasis.

Going forward, I think the opportunities are mainly in development, whether the domain owner develops, or whether the development is done through partnerships, the value-added comes from using domains, not parking them. And if someone has a viable business, and also has traffic domains, they can even use their traffic domains to drive traffic to their operating sites. Development does require a different skill set, and so if a domain investor is not a developer, then I believe it is in their interest to become effective a networking with others. Deals can be structured as partnerships, or alternatively domains can be leased or financed. In fact, if you look at Epik today, a large portion of our business comes from domain name leasing, and domain name financing. I expect you will see more of this as domains finally come out of the portfolios of the domain investors whose primary competency is managing their parking account.

Ian: Those reading PPC Ian are career-minded individuals. You started out at Procter & Gamble and built a successful 8-year career at this CPG giant before starting your first major business, GMI. I’m really curious about your experience at P&G and how it shaped your later years as a business founder and entrepreneur? Do you have any tips for career-minded individuals?

Rob: I left P&G on June 12, 1999 after an 8-year career there in Europe and Asia. My last year at P&G I was global product development manager for Pampers. This particular role involved a very great deal of travel to meet with brand teams and technology teams all over the world as part of the process of developing global product strategy. A big part of this process was gathering market research data, a task that would often take far longer than the strategic decision cycles could generally afford. This led me to investigate the possibility of using the Internet as a platform for gathering consumer insight across multiple countries in real-time. When I discovered that the market research industry barely had any comprehension of this nascent technology called the Internet, I decided to leave the day job and move the family to Seattle to start what became Global Market Insite (GMI).

I spent the summer of 1999 teaching myself to code in web languages, and began to develop the first versions of what eventually became GMI’s platform for online market research. Years later I did have an opportunity to reconnect with many of my former P&G colleagues. They were still lovely people but there was usually no spark. People in big companies make career by not taking risks and instead complying with an endless supply of internal controls and through consensus-based decision making. I did well at P&G, but by 1999, the entrepreneur in me needed to be unleashed.

I still look back very fondly on my early mentors at P&G. It was a great company during those years, attracting some of the best graduates from some of the top business schools. However, for a true entrepreneur, most large corporate organizations will eventually become a challenging environment. As such, I think an entrepreneur should look at the corporate years as being a sort of post-education residency where you have the opportunity to learn how big companies work, and to appreciate what is good about them as well as their various blind spots. As long as the inner entrepreneur is not forced to "sell out", and is being rewarded for their efforts, great. However, by around age 35, you either have made the leap or you have not. I left P&G when I was 32. It was time.

Ian: Rob, your experience at GMI was exceptional. Could you please share this story with the readers? What entrepreneurial lessons did your learn growing a company from concept to huge liquidity event?

Rob: The process of building GMI was a fantastic experience and in some ways a life’s work. The company was able to secure $2.5 million in Series A funding in 2000, within about a year of starting, and went on to grow rapidly, raising capital at progressively higher valuations, with progressively bigger private equity partners. The final external funding event was a $35 million investment led by Technology Crossover Ventures in 2006. The company went on to be sold in 2011, after I was unceremoniously removed as CEO at the initiative of an activist Board member in 2007.

This was actually a very humbling experience that led me on a journey of self-discovery, while also launching a small private equity group of my own called Monster Venture Partners. I think the biggest thing I learned from that whole experience was the consequence of bringing on outside capital partners. Once you do so, as an entrepreneur, like it or not, you have a boss. As a CEO, if you take on external capital, and have Board members, there is a huge expectation to keep the Board informed between formal Board meetings, to build trust and a sense of partnership with them. I frankly viewed my Board as a necessary evil, and despite a continued record of rapid growth, my unwillingness to actively manage my Board ended up costing me the opportunity to take GMI public. The company was instead sold for a 9 figure all cash exit to London-based WPP group, which rewarded all stakeholders.

Ian: As someone who’s built successful, large-scale teams, I’d be curious about your leadership and people management philosophy?

Rob: Well, Ian, my philosophy has changed over time but there are a few things that I can distill then that you might call a sort of wisdom. I think the biggest thing that I have come to accept is that there is a very important spiritual dimension to things. While I did not grow up with any particular religious faith, through the process of time, I came to the deeply-researched conclusion that the God of the Bible is in fact the Creator of the Universe, and that the decision to accept the free gift of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ is the path to eternal life. When you have eternal perspective, your management philosophy changes.

For example, at an earlier point in my management career, I felt it was easier to be feared than to be liked. However, as a Christian, I choose not to be feared but rather to lead by example, doing the right thing even when nobody is looking. I start each day in prayer. Why? As a sold-out Christian, I am focused on ascertaining God’s will for my life and then acting on that. Since making that decision, I found that Divine Providence has played an increasing role in my life. As a non-Christian, I had very little tolerance for fools and even less patience for rude customers. As a saved man, who has been an active student of scripture, and a tenacious searcher for truth, I now recognize that our battles are won or lost on a spiritual dimension before they play out in this physical dimension. This plays out in unexpected ways, including helping transform the lives of people who have never stopped to contemplate eternity, and are still trying to figure out the meaning of life.

And for me, the meaning of life is simply this: to figure out the identity of the Creator and then to figure out what He wants. Once you know this, it becomes progressively easier to manage the resources with which I have been entrusted and to guide the efforts of the diverse and talented group of folks with whom I have the good fortune of being able to work. It also becomes easier to love everyone, including people whose views are different than mine.

Ian: One of the things I admire most about you, Rob, is the fact that you are a successful serial entrepreneur. Very few leaders are able to successfully start and grow multiple companies. Could you please share your insights on what it takes to drive repeat success?

Rob: The first thing is to have a compelling idea. There is tremendous competition in pretty much any niche, so it helps to have a differentiated idea and a head-start on executing against that idea. There is very little value in being me-too, even if you do it exceptionally well. There has to be an angle that makes you different.

At Epik, we have an emphasis on integrating the value chain of Acquire, Build, Manage, and Sell. We also have built a unique capability around domain name leasing and financing. However, at the end of the day, in an era of high competition, a founder must know the product, and know the customer very, very well. For example, even now, as time allows, I still take support calls throughout the day, in order to make sure I know their pain points, and to develop a relationship with a network of what I called "demanding, sophisticated customers". These are not whiny jerks, but rather they are shared stakeholders in building a product and service platform that would make them more effective. They share their ideas, and we quickly integrate those into our development roadmap. The result is what you see today at Epik.

By contrast, at DigitalTown (OTC: DGTW), I was brought in as an interim CEO in May 2015 to help turn around a failing public company. Since I had not had the opportunity to run a public company, I accepted the opportunity. Within 6 months, we completely shifted the strategy, and within 9 months had a competitive and differentiated product that has the potential to change the world, particularly as it relates to smaller cities and towns that are struggling to defend themselves against the dual onslaught of big box retail and national ecommerce. Part of the rapid progress with DigitalTown was that we were able to complete an opportunistic acquisition of a development stage company called Cloud.Market which had been developing some complementary technology, and whose founder, Chris Maxwell, shared the same vision I had about the future of local communities, and the tremendous potential of web and mobile technologies to change the way the people in towns and cities engage with content, community and commerce.

I very much enjoy the process of birthing companies, and DigitalTown has been a really fun project while also managing Epik as well as some of private equity ventures. I never saw myself getting involved in local politics, but in fact because DigitalTown is build on public-private partnerships, I get to work with some very competent City and County Administrators and Mayors from across the country, and have developed a whole new appreciation for the important role these people play in shaping the destiny of local economies. With DigitalTown, I hope to add some value there.

Ian: Sometimes as an entrepreneur, you have to shift gears. You need to adapt. I know Epik’s business model has slightly evolved over time. I’d be curious about this evolution and how you had the foresight to adapt to a changing marketplace, making the right decisions for the company and its customers?

Rob: Back in 2009, Epik started out as a platform for mass development. For a couple of years, we had a windfall of a business, growing at 300% per year at one point. This was largely attributable to Google, as we were among the most prolific web developers when it came to developing Exact Match Domains (EMDs). For a period of time, Google would consistently index and rank developed sites that used an exact match domain like IceCreamMaker.com.

However, in late 2010, Google threw everyone a curveball by introducing Google Panda. Overnight, sites that were passively earning thousands of dollars per month each, were making just a trickle. And when you have a network of 10,000+ sites operating, the consequences were quite dire. It was at that point that I had to make a judgment decision on whether to try to ride things out with Google, or whether to shift strategy.

It was in July 2011 that we closed on the acquisition of the registrar operations of an established registrar called Intrust Domains. That single transaction gave us an ICANN-accredited registrar, as well as a technology foundation, and a highly talented development team. We have not looked back since. In general, entrepreneurs must be nimble and adaptive. When it comes to startups, endurance does not mean beating a dead horse. It means intelligently allocating finite resources until you have a defendable niche, on which you can build a sustainable business. This is a process, not an event. From time to time, most entrepreneurs will stare into the abyss. Some throw in the towel and get a day job. Some lose marriages. Others get ill due to years of excessive stress or poor diet. These are all tragic outcomes. Fail early, fail cheap. Trust your instincts. Scale what works. Take care of your family. Enjoy the ride.

Ian: Rob, you are one of the most busy professionals I have ever seen. You are also one of the most responsive too. I think every time I have sent you an email, day or night, I consistently get a thoughtful and thorough response within minutes. And, this is from an extremely busy CEO. I really feel that you take service personally in everything you do. Could you please share your strategy? Any secrets on juggling multiple projects at the same time?

Rob: I am a big fan of multi-tasking. Email and Skype are very good for that, i.e. your mind can engage on a multi-threaded basis, which is very hard to do with in-person meetings or with phone calls. Fortunately, I can type quickly. In general, I think technology can be quite liberating if you allow it to be and know when to turn it off. I tend to use technology to my advantage, connecting where I am during waking hours from around 6 am until around 11 pm.

Rob Monster, Dr. Jill Monster, and Their Beautiful Family

In the late afternoon or evening, when I am at home, I can often be found working in our orchard and garden or working on outdoor projects. Mobile Skype on the cellphone serve to keep me connected. And in the summer time, I will finish off some manual labor with a swim in our lake.

Downtime is important. My wife, Jill, is a successful family physician who loves to travel. We manage to take 3-4 vacations per year, usually with 1 or more of our 5 kids in tow. When traveling, I will be connected where practical. I have had the same cell phone number since 1999 and a lot of people have it. As such, my cell phone is generally not at my bedside since I am not a fan of 3 am customer calls. For emergencies, a few core people know how to reach me at home. One challenge I sometimes encounter is international travel, most recently a trip to Dubai where I was without an Internet connection for 14 hours. I am fortunate to have a wonderfully talented staff who always step up to the plate, even without being called upon to do so. For the people who work with me, they generally have adopted my pattern of blending work and play. As long as the work gets done, I don’t really care where you did it, what you were wearing while you did it, or how long it took to get it done. What matters is productivity and effectiveness.

Ian: Rob, I know how busy you are, and wanted to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you for taking the time to interview and share your insights with the PPC Ian community. I personally learned so much from this interview, and I know the knowledge you have shared will help shape many careers. Thanks for everything, it means the world to me and my readers!

Rob: Thanks Ian. Always a pleasure to visit with you, and to share insights. Your readers are welcome to reach out to me via email at rob@epik.com or call me directly at 425-765-0077 and I will do my best to provide personally relevant insight for anyone needing it. I am particularly good at helping folks secure domains from others, navigate intellectual property disputes, and recover stolen domains in the unfortunate event that such a thing should happen to anyone.

Everyone, I wanted to close out today and encourage you to head on over to Epik. As someone who truly values my digital investments and the best service around, I know you will enjoy managing your domains and digital presence on Epik.

If you enjoyed today’s written interview with Rob, I encourage you to head on over to my brand new Video Interview With Rob Monster. Rob actually happens to be CEO of two companies, Epik and DigitalTown. In my video interview, you’ll get to learn more about Rob’s new company, DigitalTown, while enjoying timeless leadership and business insights.

Disclosure: I am a shareholder in both of Rob Monster’s companies, DigitalTown (Ticker: DGTW) and Epik (privately held).

Over the years, I have written a multitude of posts here on PPC Ian about Epik. The most popular ones have been my introduction to my Personal Epik Product Portal Websites, my Epik Product Portal Development Tips, and of course my special Epik Product Portal Tips and Coupon Code. I’m a big fan of Epik, a big developer on the Epik Product Portal Platform (I now own 60 Product Portals), and am now officially on Epik’s Board of Advisors (check out my bio on the Epik Team page). I couldn’t be more thrilled when it comes to everything Epik and today I’m excited to give an overview of some new stuff going on at Epik that you’re sure to love.

Epik Is Now A Full Service Registrar

In July, 2011 Epik acquired its very own registrar, IntrustDomains. You can read all about Epik’s acquisition in this post on the Epik blog. Long story short, the acquisition on Intrust completed Epik’s dream of becoming the most comprehensive domain asset management platform on the Internet. We’re talking about the whole domain name lifecycle here: Acquire, build, manage, and divest. Epik is my registrar of choice and next I will show you how I’m leveraging Epik every single day to manage my domain/website portfolio.

All Domains From All Accounts In One Place

Check out the screenshot below, this is what it looks like when I log into my registrar account at Epik. You’ll quickly notice that there’s a world of functionality at your fingertips (I’ll get into that a bit later). First, however, I wanted to underscore an amazing feature that is really helping me out: Epik displays all of my domain names from all of my registrars. I’m able to manage all of my GoDaddy, Moniker, and Epik domains in one convenient location. Recently, I did a quick sort by expiration date and noticed that I had a good 30 domains at Moniker expiring in February. Last night, I leveraged this intelligence and logged into my Moniker account to renew all of the domains. Also, I noticed that I have a few GoDaddy domains expiring on the horizon and will take care of those shortly.

A World of Functionality At Your Fingertips

Epik makes my life easy. The screenshot below illustrates the menu that appears when I hover over a domain click the “manage” button on the main control panel (previous screenshot). Whether I’m looking to update whois info (such as toggling between public/private registration), forward a domain name, transfer domains in/out of my Epik account, renew domains, organize my portfolio, or virtually anything else I want to do, it’s all in one convenient location. Even better: I can select multiple domains at once and manage them in one bulk update. In short, Epik is one of the most user friendly registrars around. Even better, domain registration fees at Epik are cheap ($10/year) and you get all of this amazing functionality (including domain privacy and domain forwarding, if you want it) for free.

An Amazing Selection of Development Options

In the screenshot below, you can see Epik’s suite of domain development packages. I personally developed 60 of my own domains on Epik’s Product Portal Platform. However, you can quickly see that Epik offers much more than Product Portals. I’m talking about lightening fast web hosting (several different hosting packages), SiteBuilder, LeadGen Portals, Recipe Portals, and Video Portals. When it comes to making money online, Epik has you covered!

Offer Your Domains and Websites For Sale

Looking back at the first screenshot in this account, you can see that all of my domains have an “on sale” price tag next to them. I have listed many of my domains and websites for sale on the Epik Marketplace. I’m in the domain game to make money. Most of my money comes via passive income from developed websites and I’m holding onto most sites for the long term. That said, I’m definitely exploring the idea of selling domains and websites in 2012. If I’m able to earn cash by selling virtual assets, I can funnel those earnings into other passive income instruments (dividend-paying stocks or even the development of more websites). Epik owns over 20,000 domains in their own portfolio so they know all about selling domains. Leverage their expertise and platform to sell your domains/websites today.

So, there you have it, the most comprehensive registrar around! The crazy thing: I barely scratched the surface of the Epik platform with this post. If you’re looking to acquire, build, manage, and divest domain names, Epik has the entire lifecycle covered. Open your account at Epik today!

Recently, I wrote about how my Epik affiliate earnings are up (quite a bit). That post generated a lot of interest in the Epik platform and I quickly got the question: Ian, how much are you making with Epik? Can you share your earnings like you did for eBay and Commission Junction? Today, I thought I’d follow up on my previous post and answer this question with real numbers!

I’m Earning $3,544/Year On My $15,000 Investment (24% Yield)

I own 55 Epik Product Portal websites. Most of these product portals are brand new websites. They’re domains I’ve acquired within the last few years that I decided to develop on the Epik platform. Others are websites I acquired from Epik (such as Stereo Amplifiers, portrayed to the right). All of my Product Portals have custom articles (2 per site) and most have custom header blurbs too (on each sub-section of the site). I spent a ton of time and money building the best content possible because it’s all about user experience at the end of the day. I’m building quality sites that truly benefit the Internet and always recommend over-investing in great content. Between domain registration fees, development fees, acquisition fees, and article outsourcing fees, my total cost is $15,000.

Now, let’s look at the revenue side of things. Here are my earnings over the last four weeks:

6/29-7/4: $113.09 revenue

7/5-7/11: $188.63 revenue

7/12-7/18: $123.14 revenue

7/19-7/25: $118.88 revenue

TOTAL: $543.74 revenue

Now, $543.74 divided by 28 is $19.42/day. $19.42/day times 365 is $7,088 revenue/year. However, until you’re earning more with Epik, the rev share is 50/50. (You can read more about the Epik revenue share tiers here.) So, my take on the revenue is $3,544/year. As a side note: I’m very happy with Epik’s rev share model, it’s quite generous. Moreover, Epik is a true partner and without the Epik team my sites would not be where they are. The rev share is worth every dollar!

Personally, I feel that my revenue is going to come in much higher. Why? Most product shopping happens in Q4 (holiday shopping season). My earnings should jump up during that time! However, I like to be conservative in my financial modeling so let’s just say my annual revenue is $3,544 based on the last 4 week’s data. (Also, I am not factoring in my annual domain renewal fees of approximately $500 but again that should be hugely overshadowed by my holiday season earnings.) $3,544 divided by my $15,000 cost is a sweet 24% yield!

My Epik Yield Is Unparalleled In Other Investments

I’m a huge fan of cash flow and invest in all sorts of investment vehicles that offer cash flow. I’m talking about dividend-paying stocks, websites (both build from scratch and also buy established websites), and more. Very few investments return a 24% annual yield within the first year of the venture. In the stock market, even if you buy the high yielding tobacco companies or telecom companies, we’re talking about an yield in the high 5% range.

I’m not counting capital appreciation here but I’m not counting that for my Epik Product Portals either. Come to think of it, the capital appreciation with Epik Product Portals is much higher than stocks. Why? Sites like Flippa are heating up and it’s a hot market for income-producing websites right now. Just check out my last post about Zac Johnson’s eBook.

My end conclusion: Epik Product Portals are one of the best investments around. The websites are truly useful and are making the Internet a better place. I’m finding that by partnering with Epik, I’m earning extremely high yields with scale. My future includes many more Product Portals as I plan to expand my portfolio to well over 100 Product Portals over time.

Get Started For Just $224.10 With My Epik Coupon Code

Want to give it a test? Your first Product Portal will only cost you $224.10. The regular price is $249, but you get 10% off with the exclusive PPC Ian coupon (PPCIAN10). Click here to get started with Epik! Anyone else out there developing sites on Epik? I’d love to hear your experience. Want to learn even more? Below, I link to some of my other posts about Epik:

I’m a huge fan of Epik. I’ve been blogging about Epik here on PPC Ian for a while. After all, it’s my favorite web develop platform for product-oriented domains. Currently, I own 55 developed websites on the Epik platform. Today, I’m going to talk about Epik’s brand new Product Portal platform, version 3.0, and also some cool stats about my recent earnings spike! First, however, I wanted to link to my past few posts about Epik as they will provide you some great background around this sweet platform:

Epik Product Portal 3.0 Rocks

Now that you know a bit about Epik, I’d like to share some of my favorite features of Product Portal version 3.0. At the bottom of this post, you’ll see a screenshot of my Epik website Motorbike Jacket. As you can see, the site is really slick. Websites on Epik’s new platform are simply stunning. This is great from two perspectives: First, as an owner, I have serious pride of ownership. Second, my sites are converting better than ever (users love the new look and feel).

Aside from looking really great, Epik’s new platform is more SEO-optimized than ever. It’s all about content. Anyone reading PPC Ian can appreciate that. I’ve been adding quality, helpful content to my Epik Product Portals (and all my websites) from day one. As a result, search engines have rewarded me handsomely. Epik’s new platform makes it easier than ever before to add articles and place them in really prominent positions on your site. Want to learn even more? I recommend checking out Epik’s Product Portal 3.0 Announcement.

My Earnings are Up 5.6 Times

When I look at my Epik earnings from the past week (as compared to 4 weeks ago), my earnings are up 5.6 fold. Now, one reason I’m doing well is I own some seasonal domains that do well in the summer time such as Outdoor Sofas. However, the majority of my gains are due to Epik’s new platform. Not only am I getting more visitors but also my visitors are converting better than ever. Product Portal 3.0 (especially when the developer adds tons of great, custom content like myself) is very SEO-optimized.

My end conclusion: WordPress is the ideal platform for building a blog. The Epik Product Portal platform, in my opinion, is the WordPress of commerce-oriented domain names. If you’re looking to develop commerce-oriented domains, you’ve got to give Epik a try. And, don’t forget my special coupon code for 10% off your entire order (PPCIAN10).

I’m just going to warn you up front, today’s post totally rocks! Not only am I going to present an exclusive Epik Product Portal SEO tip that has been working wonders on my extensive portfolio of 55 Epik sites, but I’m also going to share a special Epik Product Portal coupon code only for PPC Ian readers. That’s right, I negotiated this special coupon code with the man himself, Rob Monster (CEO of Epik), as a favor for PPC Ian readers.

I Invested $10,000+ In My Epik Product Portals

So, first of all, what the heck are Epik Product Portals? Epik is basically the WordPress of product comparison shopping sites. It’s an amazing platform that empowers owners of high quality product domains to build out amazing websites that drive extensive value for the user while providing outstanding monetization for the domain owner. Want to learn more? Check out my post about my personal Epik Product Portal websites and then my post about my Epik Development Tips. I’m so confident in Epik that I made a substantial $10,000+ investment in my personal Epik Product Portfolio websites in 2010 and I continue to invest this year. This is my very hard earned money, on the line!

My Epik Product Portal SEO Tips

So, as part one of today’s post, I wanted to provide a quick and actionable SEO tip for all you Epik developers out there (and Epik developers to be). Since I own 55 Epik Product Portals, I’ve experienced the excitement of testing many different SEO strategies across my portfolio of sites. Over the last few months, a clear winning strategy has emerged and that’s the strategy I’m going to share with you today! That said, results vary and I never recommend going with just one strategy. It’s important to test, test, test and want to underscore that this is just one winning strategy and there are others out there.

First, let’s look at a brand new Epik website. When you get a brand new site developed by Epik, it comes complete with everything (and I mean everything) you need for success. In fact, these off-the-shelf sites will do very well with zero modifications. Today, however, I wanted to show some ways to supercharge your Epik sites (for exponential returns). An example of an off-the-shelf Epik site? Check out my brand new site Outdoor Sofas. Key things to note:

There are no articles (yet).

The blurbs are the same at the top of each page. Check out the homepage versus the outdoor sectional sofas page.

The keyword outdoor sofas in the top blurb refers to a sub-page by the same name and not the homepage, the root domain.

There are two articles (and more in the pipeline). An example: double picture frames ideas. Exciting note: Epik provides amazing packages to assist with article creation. They will even upload articles (you write on your own or via their own team).

I link to the articles page in the blurb at the top of the homepage. Even though articles are direct linked on all pages Epik Product Portal sites, this extra link to the articles page in my homepage blurb helps search engines find (and weight) my custom, high quality articles. Remember: Content is king! Get credit for that content by linking to it.

I link back to the homepage with the keyword double picture frames from within my articles (but am careful to not overdo it). This helps add authority to my high quality exact match domain name and tells the search engines what my site is all about.

Instead of linking to a sub-page, the keyword double picture frames within my main blurb on the homepage links right back to the homepage. Like the links within the articles, this helps reinforce the exact match domain name with search engines. That said, be careful to not overdo it. It’s a balancing act.

I write custom blurbs for every page of my site. For example, check out my metallic picture frames page. It’s different than the homepage and is optimized for these special metallic picture frames. Within these sub-pages, I sometimes link back to the same sub-page with the topical theme of the page as anchor text. These recursive links help tell search engines what your page is all about, although I don’t use this strategy on all my sites. I vary it a bit, and don’t like to follow a fixed template all the time.

So, there you have it! I am very confident that if you employ these simple tips on your current (or soon to be) Epik sites, you will experience great returns! At the end of the day, these tips are all about adding quality content (content that users will read and enjoy is always king).

PPC Ian’s Exclusive Epik Product Portal Coupon Code (PPCIAN10)

Now, the real fun! So I’m personal friends with Rob Monster, CEO of Epik. Rob is a serial entrepreneur, business leader, and overall genius within technology. He’s someone I definitely look up to because I’m personally trying to achieve fame in the corporate world of online marketing. You would think with his background that Rob wouldn’t have time to talk to individual Epik developers. That couldn’t be further from the case! I can’t get over the fact that Rob (and his entire team) always goes above and beyond to assist individual Epik developers with their questions and ideas, even though Epik has grown into a large company.

Anyways, I asked Rob if I could get a special coupon code for you guys and I was successful. Here’s the coupon code: PPCIAN10 – Enter this coupon code when making your purchase at Epik and you’ll receive a 10% discount off your entire order. (Here’s a link to the Epik website.)

Make sure to mention that you’re a PPC Ian reader and the Epik team will give you the red carpet treatment for sure! Whether you’re a current Epik developer or a new one, I highly recommend taking advantage of this coupon code. If you’re new to Epik, why not start small? Epik Product Portals start at $249, and only $224.10 with the PPC Ian discount. As an online marketing professional, it’s my opinion that you cannot afford to miss this opportunity. Of course, if you have any questions, please feel free to post them here on PPC Ian! I’m looking forward to some Epik discussion.

Epik product portals rock! Last time, I wrote all about my personal Epik product portal websites. I currently own 45 developed websites on the Epik network, three of which I highlighted in my last post. Another few examples include Motorbike Jacket, Velour Tracksuit, and Cheap Desk. My last article was a real hit and I’m especially thankful for the awesome comments from all of you! Today I’m thrilled to continue the Epik discussion. Specifically, I’m going to share actionable tips that will help you make money with Epik.

It All Starts Out With The Right Domain Name

So you’re convinced and ready to launch your first Epik product portal website. Great stuff! Whether you’re new to domain names or a seasoned domainer with hundreds (or even thousands) of domains, there are some important things to consider when choosing which domains to develop on Epik. First and foremost, you’ll want to pick a name that is an exact match of a product sold online. If you have other types of names, Epik can still help, but you’ll want to look at their other platforms instead of the product portal that I’m so familiar with.

Second, I suggest picking an exact match domain that gets at least 700-1,000 or more global exact match searches per month according to Google’s keyword tool. My site Velour Tracksuit gets 1,600 global exact searches per month. If you start venturing below this level, you won’t have enough searchers to make it worth your while.

Focus On High Quality Dot Com and Dot Net Domains

Third, you’ll want to pick a name name that’s either a dot com or dot net domain. You’ve heard me talk a lot about dot me, dot co, and other TLDs here on PPC Ian. I’m a huge fan of many TLDs and have developed sites on dot com, dot net, dot org, dot me, dot co, dot info, dot us, and dot biz. However, for the purposes of Epik product portals, they’re looking to really preserve the integrity of the network and stick with high quality dot com and dot net for product portals since the main purpose and intent of these TLDs is commerce. This surprised me a bit at first, but now it totally makes sense. I have a ton of dot org product domains and have been building them out differently – I’m going the article route with my dot orgs and making them more informational whereas I’m going the product sales route with my dot com and dot net domains. The strategy has been working great! Have a killer domain that’s not a dot com or dot net? Share it with the Epik team! They’ll definitely let you try alternate TLDs for product portals if they’re category defining names.

Dot Com Domains With Dashes Are OK

As a side note, you may be wondering about domain names with hyphens in them. Whereas a few years ago, these domains were looked down upon, they seem to be in everyone’s portfolios these days. Taking myself as an example, I developed the domain Cheap-Desk.com on Epik. This exact match hyphenated domain name has 1,900 global exact match searches per month, it’s a great name! Here’s the rule when it comes to hyphenated domains on Epik: Epik totally allows and supports great hyphenated domains on dot com but does not entertain them on dot net. Now, if you’re like me, you’re thinking that rules are meant to be broken! Have a great dot net domain with a dash in it? I would certainly run it by Epik, but it’s going to have to be a killer name to get accepted.

Content Is King On Epik Product Portals

So my first few tips today focused specifically on selecting great domain names for development on Epik. Now, I’m going to shift gears and discuss a few high leverage tips for making the most of your sites once they’re live on Epik. My strategy is really a three tiered one. First and foremost, I always make sure to upload custom articles to my Epik sites. Taking Motorbike Jacket as an example, you can see that I have custom articles about Buying a Motorbike Jacket and Motorbike Jacket Purchasing Tips. I had these great articles written for me on ELance (always go with the more expensive writers, they do better work) and were super easy to upload with Epik’s WYSIWYG editor. My golden rule: Each Epik product portal needs at least two custom articles.

Custom Blurbs On All Epik Product Tabs

Each Epik product portal has a variety of product tabs. On MotorbikeJacket.net, for example, I have tabs for Summer Motorcycle Jackets, Winter Motorcycle Jacket, Leather Motorcycle Jackets, and Motorcycle Rain Jackets. Check out the blurb at the top of each of these pages! They’re all custom and unique. They all differ from the custom blurb at the top of my main homepage. Moreover, if you view the source code of these pages, you’ll see that each has a custom meta title and meta description as well! I have my ELance writers write this custom content when they’re writing the articles. This is really your chance to personalize your Epik Product Portal and get rewarded by the search engines! To summarize, my second content tip: Write custom blurbs, meta titles, and meta descriptions for all product tabs on your Epik sites. It’s super easy to upload this custom content via Epik’s back end tool.

Leverage The Epik Team

It’s really as easy as that! These simple tips will get you off to an amazing start on Epik. Once you’ve completed these steps, it’s all about repeating with more domains and also continuing to add more content to your existing domains. Search engines (and users) love to have as much useful content as possible. As my final tip for today, don’t forget to reach out to the Epik team. They can help with an amazing number of things and are partners in your success. Leverage their expertise to make as much money as possible on Epik.

Hey Everyone! I really enjoy reading affiliate marketing blogs that discuss first hand tips about making money online. I enjoy those blogs even more that are open about current initiatives the blogger is working on. In that spirit, I’m going to share one of my major affiliate marketing initiatives today and also some of my personal domains that I’ve been developing! Drum roll please… I have been hard at work developing my domain portfolio on the Epik.com platform! Today, I’m going to discuss my personal experience developing 45 domains so far on Epik.

First Things First, What’s Epik?

Have you heard of Epik? If not, don’t worry. It’s super new. I actually had no idea what the heck Epik was until I went to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. back in January. It’s at this awesome domaining conference that I heard Rob Monster Epik’s CEO speak. In my opinion, Rob delivered one of the most fascinating Internet Marketing presentations I have ever heard. It’s at this time that my interest in Rob’s company, Epik.com, took off.

What is Epik? It’s a revolutionary platform that allows domain owners to develop their domains with more scale, efficiency, and quality than ever before. They offer a variety of platforms to develop different types of domains: product, directory, reference, Q&A, and poll. Epik is probably best known for their product platform that allows anyone with a product-focused domain to quickly build an online store that delivers a substantial user experience.

My Personal Epik Development Plan

After the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference, I went home and added Epik to my to do list. However, it totally slipped from my mind and priorities for quite a few months. You know how it is, right? There’s 100 things to do and stuff slips. However, back in August, I got hyped up again. Time was passing fast and my domain portfolio was growing faster than I could keep up. Domains just sitting around don’t make money, after all. They’re liabilities and not assets! Parking doesn’t really work anymore. This all turned into my goal: Develop all (or at least most) of my growing product-focused domain portfolio on the Epik platform.

I Now Own 45 Developed Epik Product Portals

So I went for it! I developed 45 Epik product portals! Just a few examples include: Kids Computer Desk, the premier place to buy kids computer desks online, Petite Jacket, a store specializing in fashionable women’s petite jackets, and Narrow Dishwasher, your resource for finding space saving narrow dishwashers for your kitchen. Each of my sites has custom header text on each tab and sports custom articles. For example, check out my articles about Petite Jacket Sizing and Petite Jackets and Coats.

I couldn’t be more proud of these sites. They addsubstantial value to the user, they look great, and they’re making me money already! Better yet, I was able to develop them faster than ever before due to the power of the platform.

How Does Epik Work?

So, how does this all work? It’s quite simple. Each product portal costs $249 and carries with it a 50/50 revenue share arrangement (although the split shifts more in your favor as you hit higher revenue tiers). For $249 (discounts are available if you commit to volume development like myself), you get a custom logo, custom header, and your initial site fully built. Moreover, you get expert support from the amazing Epik team. I have been in very close contact with Rob Monster himself and have gotten a huge amount of help. In my opinion, this price is a steal! You can easily pay $249 for just a custom logo on other sites.

Once your initial product portal is live, it’s time to add articles, custom headers for the different tabs, and custom meta descriptions. Don’t worry! All of this is really easy with Epik’s cutting edge platform. Everything is fully hosted on Epik’s servers so you don’t have to do any work around server configuration or uploading of files. Moreover, this gives Epik the flexibility to make upgrades to your sites such as their current holiday deals. In my particular case, I have been outsourcing all articles and header text so all I have to do is play middleman. Please note that Epik is a total solution. They also offer a variety of packages to help you get content on your site if you’d like the help!

Epik.com Rocks and I Couldn’t Be More Excited

My conclusion: Epik rocks! I plan on developing another 55 sites within the coming year to round out my portfolio at 100 Epik sites. I have been able to get sites live that make money right away, sites that look better than others which took twice as long to build, sites that offer scale I have never before seen.

As the Internet evolves, it’s all about verticalization. As someone who’s worked extensively in the product shopping vertical at shopping giant NexTag, it’s my opinion that Epik is the future of online product shopping. Stay tuned, I’m going to write more posts about Epik.com in the future, including specific guides on how to use their system. I couldn’t be more excited, I already received my first check from Epik and can’t wait to see them increase in size as each month passes! Of course, I do have a lot of hard work ahead in terms of adding content and building quality inbound links.

About PPC Ian

Hi, I'm Ian Lopuch, also known as PPC Ian. I'm a Silicon Valley business executive, marketing executive, and general manager, with deep roots in technology. I’m also an investor with a lifelong obsession for cash flow. Whether I’m acquiring and developing commercial real estate properties, leading complex digital marketing programs with $30 MM+ annual budgets, integrating cutting-edge technologies, or hiring and coaching large teams, I take charge of all with the mindset of an investor.